Shadow of Tyranny
by mike50333
Summary: One's fears will always have to be confronted.  But sometimes, doing so can hold deadly consequences.  Rated T for dark themes.
1. The Messenger

**A/N: I got the idea to write this while I watching an episode of Teen Titans on Boomerang. I'm not gonna tell you which episode it is. Instead, I'm gonna let you try and guess. The correct guesser wins a new car and house…okay, not really, but I'll give you a shout-out in the following chapter. :D**

**I warn you now, this story will be kind of dark.**

**Fun Fact: the title for this story came from the name of a track from X-Ray Dog, entitled – you guessed it – Shadow of Tyranny. Hey, it may not be super creative, but it works. :p**

**Read and Review**

* * *

_The Messenger_

There was a hushing calm in the night's embrace on the small island of Kyoshi. The amber-colored leaves rustled daintily in the calm breeze, some of them being released from the grip of the tree limbs and granted their wish to float along the current of the air. The moon graced the earth with its soft light, almost giving the sand on the beach and the water that surrounded the atoll a look of silver. The crickets sang their chirped songs to their mates, drifting the human inhabitants down the calm babbling brook of sleep. And yet, the soft sonata hadn't any effect on one newcomer.

Ty Lee, the island's newest Kyoshi Warrior, was having trouble finding rest. She tossed and turned sleeplessly in her cot, her body appearing to try and tire itself out and force rest upon her. This however yielded nothing for her efforts. After a while, she finally sat up, swinging herself around and resting her feet upon the dry wooden floor. Herdark chocolate hair, undone from its usual braid, sat uncoordinated on her shoulders.

As she stared at the floor beneath her, Ty Lee pondered on what could possibly be causing this bout of restlessness. She hadn't had any problems with the other warriors. After a month of being a part of their group, she'd quickly gained the trust of her "sisters" and they had become good friends with her, and vice versa. She was even on good terms with Suki, who grudgingly only gave the Fire National entry into the Kyoshi Warriors after hearing the positive report of the other warriors with whom she'd been imprisoned.

Since betraying Azula, when serving time in the Boiling Rock prison, she used to be plagued with nightmares, recapitulating fears of her former friend killing her or Mai, fears of never being accepted again in the Fire Nation. But those fears seemed to finally go away when she joined the Kyoshi Warriors. Amidst the members of her new family, she never felt more at peace with herself…

So why did she feel so out of sorts right _now?_

Realizing that reprieve wouldn't come where she was now, she stood up and walked out of her room, opening her door slowly and squeezing out of the gap before closing it back again, trying to keep the squeaking of the ungreased hinges as low as possible. She then started down the hall. For a while, the only sound she heard was the soft tapping of her docile feet about the planks until, about halfway to the end of the corridor, she heard the creak of another wooden door. Ty Lee turned to see Natsumi enter the hallway. She was dressed in an olive-green yukata, just like Ty Lee's. The Kyoshi Warriors all wore garments of the same styling: long, flowing, olive-colored robes with broad, squared sleeves and lime-green ties. The usually radiant color of her emerald eyes was hidden by her droopy eyelids. Her movement somewhat shuffled, suggesting she'd just woken up.

"What're you doin' up?" Her voice was slurred like Sokka fresh on cactus juice.

"I'm sorry," Ty Lee whispered. "I didn't mean to wake you. I was just-"

"-Sneaking out of the dorms." Ty Lee and Natsumi both yelped and snapped their heads towards the voice, seeing Suki appear behind the young fink. The leader of the Kyoshi Warriors gazed accusingly at the newcomer. She was wearing a nightgown like the rest of the now-slumbering warriors. Her hair seemed as made up and proper as during the day. This was something the acrobat had always noticed about the elite warrior ever since their fight on the gondola, during Suki's prison escape. It was also something she was secretly envious of.

Ty Lee began to break into a cold sweat, which she found weird. "No, I-I well, I sorta was, but I wasn't…" Ty Lee, at a loss for words and not wanting to keep stuttering like an idiot any longer, heaved a defeated sigh from her lungs and dipped her head in surrender. Why was she so uneasy? She wasn't doing anything wrong.

"Natsumi, go back to bed," Suki ordered, her voice stiff and glare firm. She complied with the command with a nod and closed her door. The auburn-haired warrior turned back to Ty Lee.

"Well," Suki crossed her arms and her brows dipped subtly. "Are you going to tell me what you're doing out of your room in the middle of the night?"

"I couldn't sleep," Ty confessed softly, keeping her eyes trained on her leader. "I wanted to go to the beach and try to relax."

Suki's glare fell away immediately and was replaced with a small smirk. "That's it?"

Ty Lee nodded.

Suki let off a small laugh. "Well goodness, Ty, you don't have to sneak out to just hit the beach for a little bit." There was a brief pause before Suki's smile fell again. "Have you always had issues sleeping since you got here?"

"Not really, no…"

"Is there something on your mind? Do you need to talk?"

Ty Lee shook her head and finally lit a reassuring smile to her friend. "No, I don't think so. I just need to hit the beach for a little while. I used to do the same thing back when I was in the circus."

"The circus? I thought you told us that the circus you used to go to was near Omashu. There aren't any bodies of water near Omashu."

"I was part of a _traveling_ circus. We moved a lot through the Earth Kingdom, and we were always entertaining folks in the Fire Nation colonies," the former performer explained.

"Oh… Well, why do you need to hit the beach?"

"Because I need sleep, silly," Ty Lee reminded drowsily.

Suki's brows perked. "The beach helps you _sleep_?"

"Well, it's less about the beach and more about listening to the soothing sounds of nature. Back in Omashu, there was a wooded area nearby. I would go there for meditation. It would always help to calm my nerves before a performance. I'm hoping it'll help me here, too."

Suki's brows relaxed and she flashed a smile again. "Hmm…well, go ahead, then. Just make sure you're refreshed for morning drills. You know my policy about tardiness and weak performance."

"A group is only as strong as their weakest unit," Ty Lee recited, recalling the saying from her first days of training.

"That and whoever is late has to help the fishermen scale and gut the fish for the entire day."

Ty Lee shuddered at this. She had to do that very duty the first day of training. Apparently, it's tradition for the established Kyoshi's to pick on the newcomers, as she found out when nobody woke her up at morning call. What's worse is that she ended up helping to gut, not the usual fish, but _squid. _She smelled like a one-month dead possum-squirrel for two days straight.

"Y-yeah," she answered with a nervous chuckle. Ty Lee started towards the dorm entrance when Suki called for her again.

"Hey, one more thing, Ty."

The acrobat looked back to Suki, who was in her room at the end of the hall, her head sticking out of the near-closed door. "Yes?"

The auburn haired girl smirked. "Next time you want to sneak out of the dorms, try the window. It's not as noisy as the door."

* * *

The crashing of the surf upon the beach did just what Ty Lee had hoped it would. She felt calm and relaxed. Her chocolate eyes started to droop and she smiled as a wave of exhaustion hit her. She lifted herself to her feet and started into the woods, back towards the dorms.

As she walked deeper into the throngs of trees, the light growing more and more scarce, she suddenly found herself thinking about the Boiling Rock. She shuddered vociferously at remembering the hell-hole that the prison so rightfully was known as. She was blessed enough to have avoided being killed by the guards, as Mai grimly forecasted to be her fate at the hands of the guards for taking down Azula, but she wasn't immune to torture. Many a time, she was beaten, starved and whipped, both with ripping rope and the searing fire. A few times, Azula herself was the facilitator of these deeds, helping to fuel Ty Lee's fears that her death would come at princess's hand.

Perhaps the worst form of torture that she endured was witnessing the murder of the Boiling Rock's female inmates. These inmates were Earth Kingdom fugitives shipped in from the mainland strictly for that purpose. For Ty Lee, it wasn't the fact that she was forced to watch the demise of the girls, who were all around her age, that made her cringe and squirm wildly in the chair to which she was confined, or gave her nightmares for nights on end. What made Ty Lee sick to her stomach were the disgusting and inhumane ways that the prisoners were executed. The methods ranged widely, but had two main common denominators: they were slow, and they were bloody. In each witnessed execution, her ears were racked with the girls' screams as the guards tore away flesh, smashed to dust bone, and spilled as much blood as their savage hands could rip out. Ty Lee's own screams and sobs would always try to block the cries of the victims and her eyes would flush with tears, trying to wipe away the wretched scenes from her sight, from her mind, but still they sights and sounds of death flooded her senses. With each slaughtered youth, a small part of her died with them.

The most damning reality of that part of her life was the fact that Azula specifically gave the guards the order to do this, and that she was the only one who was subjected to that form of torment. Mai was kept immune because of her relations with the warden, being his niece.

Those images, forever engraved in her mind, haunted her even to this very day. Tearing herself loose of those wretched thoughts, Ty Lee reminded herself that this was the very reason that she'd left the Fire Nation, why she'd pushed so valiantly to be allowed to join the Kyoshi Warriors. After being harmed by her own, after watching the horror that "patriots" in her country subjected to her fellow inmates, her fellow _peers_, to _she herself, _she could no longer call the Fire Nation home.

Being brought back to the present, she saw that she'd stopped moving and that she was lower to the ground than before…in fact, she was _on _the ground, on her hands and knees. Tears were streaking even still down her face and her throat was swollen and sore. She'd been crying.

_I guess I'm not as over it as I thought…_

She picked herself up and started towards the dorms once more when she heard something in the trees. Ty looked up to the tops of the lumbering trees, but didn't see anything that constituted a disturbance. _It must be a squirrel-possum or something…_

Moving on once more to her home, the woods were quiet again. Ty Lee could hear nothing moving anymore. The crickets no longer sang and the owls were silent. Nothing scurried along the floor or in the trees. It was almost as if the forest was completely dead. The only thing that entered her ears was the crunch of dried, withered leaves that lined the forest floor crunching under the force of her bare feet.

After nearly eighty lonely paces, she finally heard another sound besides her strides. Not sure of what was there or what was going on, Ty Lee's heart began to pound, her senses growing sharper than usual. Ty Lee's right ear perked minutely as a high-pitched whistle vibrated upon her eardrums. She stopped just in time to avoid an arrow whipped past her and into a tree on her opposite side. One more step forward, and that very arrow would be in her arm.

She turned towards the origins of the projectile. Rising from his hiding place in the bushes was a figure in a hooded drape. She was reminded of the drape that Zuko wore the day he ran away to join the Avatar. She could tell that the figure was a man because of his broad shoulders. He was careful to keep his face concealed as he stood with his back to the moon. Of course, his face was hard to see in the first place because of the almost nonexistent lighting of the forest. In his hand was a bow. Not seeing any arrows in his free hand, Ty Lee suspected that they were in a pouch, strapped to his hip beneath the cloak.

The two stared at each other for the longest. At last, the figure spoke. "Are you Ty Lee?"

The girl in question stared at the guy with a mixture of bafflement and distress. _This guy _attacks _me, and he wants to know my _name? "Who wants to know?" she asked, trying to mask the fear in her voice with confidence. However, instead of confident, her voice was raspy.

Beneath his hood, the man smirked. "A messenger."

Ty Lee dropped into stance as he reached into his veil, snatching out a small cylinder object. She could see a small string protruding from it; Ty Lee had a feeling that it was some sort of explosive. With a click of his fingers, the fuse was ignited, sparkling with a loud, hissing _fizz. _As the 'messenger' threw the explosive towards the girl with a breezy flick of the wrist, Ty Lee jumped to get out of the blast radius, but the bomb exploded just as she went airborne. The discharge sent her flying into the trees. Her head was spinning and her body felt like she'd been hit with the wind of a maelstrom. Estimating where the girl would land, the man threw another cylinder. As it landed under Ty Lee, there was a small spark, and then a burst of wind as the air around her was clouded in white particles. Slamming hard on the ground, her lungs burned as she coughed violently on the strange substance, her eyes red and scratchy. Despite this, warrior tried to stand once more on her feet, but her body was sore from the brief attack.

"I don't know…who you are," Ty Lee warned with her fists shakily raised and legs quivering wearily, "but you're not getting off that easy."

"Of course, I am…" the attacker sneered, "…In three…two…one."

Right on cue, Ty Lee's legs gave out and she fell to her knees. Her arms shook even harder now. Her muscles felt as if a ton of bricks was suddenly placed on her back. Every part of her now was sore and tired; she felt ready to collapse. She couldn't even raise her head to see her assailant.

"What…whad di-ii-i…gyouuu…"

What remained of the girl's strength was now gone as she fell limp onto her side. Her breathing was slowed to a sleepy hiss as her chest rose and fell faintly. Darkness claimed her completely and she slipped into a void of nothingness.

The cloaked figure smirked at the unconscious Ty Lee and turned, starting in a slow stride towards the beach.

"Message received."


	2. It Begins

**A/N: Sorry for the delay, folks, but school's been a real pain in the keister! Thanks to Gongsun Du**, **Whiteflower, RedesignMe, and TheMonkeyFuzz for supplying your guesses (sadly, nobody's gotten it right, yet, but still, thanks!)**

**Hope you enjoy this latest chapter!**

_It Begins_

_

* * *

_

As the golden orb of light called the sun peered over the horizon, concluding its game of hide-and-seek with the sky, the small archipelago that was Kyoshi Island was graced once more with the warmth of that giant, orange-yellow marble. Despite the calm beginning of the morning that nature ushered in, Suki's sect of the Kyoshi Warriors were anything but calm.

A panic erupted within the group of female warriors when it was learned that one of their newest recruits, Ty Lee, went missing. Wasting no time, Suki immediately organized a search party. She, Kei and Hitomi (her first and second lieutenants) searched the beach. Kimiko and Natsumi searched the woods. Etsuko and Rei, another two new recruits transferred from the island's northern Kyoshi sect, stayed behind at the dojo, should the acrobat return.

As they peered around tree trunks and thick bushes, Kimiko and Natsumi grew more and more anxious – Natsumi especially.

"I hope nothing's happened to her," Natsumi said somberly after calling out the acrobat's name for the 85th time, the long black bangs on the corners of her forehead threatening to fray from stress. She paused and frowned, a sickening thought materializing in her mind. "You don't think someone from the village…"

"I doubt it," Kimiko reassured, her green eyes and golden headdress shining in the patches of morning radiance that filtered through the trees. "I mean, sure, there are some people who still don't like her, with her being from the Fire Nation and all, but I don't think anyone would dare try and hurt her."

"But there isn't any other explanation," Natsumi continued, eyes glinted in distress. "You know it's not like Ty Lee to miss morning call. She hasn't missed a single morning drill- especially not after the first day."

"Yeah, that squid gutting sure did get her to kick it into high gear, didn't it?" Kimiko laughed. "Anyway, you don't need to worry. Again, nobody would dare to try and hurt Ty Lee. Everyone on the island knows about that Kijutsu thing-"

"_Kyusho Jutsu,"_ Natsumi corrected.

Kim rolled her eyes. "Everyone knows about that _whatever_ thing that she can do. She can fend for herself. Plus, if anyone did dare to hurt her, they'll be found out sooner or later. And then they'd end up being a midnight snack for the Unagi, personal courtesy of Suki."

"…I guess you're right. It's just…she's had such a hard way in life. Being neglected by her family, having to betray one friend to save another…what all she went through in prison… It'd be so unfair for something to _have happened_ just when she finally seems to get a break."

"You're right about _that_," Kimiko said with a nod. "But you have to admit, the kid's pretty strong." She smirked, her mind drawing her back to the day of Fire Lord Zuko's coronation. _We're gonna be best friends forever! _"You _have _to be strong to have gone through what _she's_ gone through and still be able to hold that goofy grin."

Natsumi released a calming giggle, her mind being brought back to that exact same scene. "Good point."

Just then, a loud squawk rang through the air. They looked up to see a red-and-black bird gliding straight towards them. It was Hawky. Natsumi instinctively held out an arm for the bird to land on, but it wouldn't touch down. Instead, it flapped its wings wildly, screeching and crying frantically.

For a brief few seconds, the girls just looked at it, puzzled by its strange behavior. "What's wrong with him?" Kimiko asked.

Dropping her arm back to her side, a thought occurred to Natsumi. "I think he might've found Ty Lee!" She turned from her friend to the hawk. "Do you want us to follow you, buddy?"

Hawky finally descended from his hover and swooped down between them in a graceful glide. He then banked right and headed back from whence he came, his wings beating the air as he climbed towards the trees. The girls burst into a sprint, staying glued to the bird's tail feathers.

* * *

Darkness. For hours on end, nothing but darkness enveloped Ty Lee. She couldn't move, couldn't see, couldn't hear or breathe. She must be dead… She hoped desperately that she wasn't; that she'd fallen into a dreamless coma of some sort.

After an eternity, she finally saw something that filled her heart with hope. There was a light. It was a very dim light, as if diffused beneath a thin black bed sheet, but she could still see it. The acrobat still couldn't feel or move, but she knew that she was moving closer to this light. After a small time, Ty Lee could feel herself slowly coming back to life. The light turned from a dim, obscure glimmer, to an intense, glaring glow.

As the darkness fled, her other senses began to come to life. She could feel again. She was lying on the ground, still in the woods, likely in the same spot as that guy had left her. She released a dragged, groggy "oww…" as the feeling came back to arms, legs and head, all of which were still sore from the nighttime fight. Her ears picked up the light crackle of leaves being trampled upon. The steps were soft and reserved, cautiously approaching. Could be a deer, though they usually avoided contact with humans – especially around this time of the year; the islanders sometimes hunted deer for food, and with winter approaching, game meat and other foods were starting to be gathered for storage. Latching a hand onto a raised, gown-covered knee, she slowly pulled herself into an upright sitting position.

Looking behind her, sure enough, a deer was peeking out of the line of foliage…well, sort-of. It actually was a female _pronghorn_ deer. Ty Lee could tell straightaway that it was a girl. The head of the young doe was narrow and dual-colored: bronze at the top, with a curve that helped to give a slim look to her face, and white at bottom, covering the jaw-bone. There were two petite horns beginning to break out right between its rounded ears from the top of her dome, a dark, dingy-brown color. As she came further into view, seeming to ignore Ty Lee and head for a small patch of grass in the middle of the path, the acrobat could see the beautiful speckles of white spots that decorated her equally bronze torso. A large patch of white marked the underbelly and hindquarters, with a fluffy, white tail lightly wagging in content as she took her first bite at the thin-bladed weeds.

Ty Lee couldn't help but smile at the sight. She always was one to appreciate the beauty and bounties of nature. This gentle aura about her must've radiated like the beacon of a Fire Nation flamehouse, because even the most fearful of creatures seemed to feel safe around her company.

This feeling of placidity didn't last long, as the young doe suddenly perked up her head, glanced for the briefest of seconds down the trail, and scurried away, kicking up a small cloud of dust in its wake.

Ty Lee's eyes followed the retreating beast, saddened at its departure, and then looked down the trail to see what caused its start. She could see a small yet elegant pattern of black and red striking against the green of the leaves as it bore down on her. She squinted, trying to get a better look at what it was, until she heard a high-pitched screech. She immediately identified it as the messenger hawk Sokka had left Suki during his first post-war visit to Kyoshi. Her ears picked up the sound of crunching leaves again, but this time the steps sounded quick and heavy, clearly in a sprint. As the messenger hawk reached her and went into a circling glide, her eyes followed the sound of the approaching entity. This entity turned out to be two people. As they neared her, she recognized them straightaway.

"Natsumi! Kimiko!" The girl's mouth spread into a relieved grin.

"Ty Lee!" they cried in unison.

Natsumi went into a slide on the soft dirt path and embraced Ty Lee upon reaching her. The person on the receiving end of that hug, which was quite tight by the way, simply sat there; she wanted to return the gesture, but her body seemed slow to react.

"Natsumi, would you get off her? She's not a long-lost puppy," Kimiko snickered. The girl blushed in embarrassment for her actions and apologized to Ty Lee. The newbie simply laughed it off heartily.

"It's just good to be missed."

"So, what the _what_ are you doing out here? Why did you miss morning drills…and is that white powder?" Natsumi asked, noticing the light white dusting of her head.

Ty Lee explained the situation to her comrades, her trip to the beach, her being ambushed by a mysterious figure, and her being knocked out by the unknown cloud of white dust. Natsumi glared down the path when the acrobat detailed her encounter with the mystery attacker.

"I swear, if anyone in that village-"

"Natsumi, settle down," Kimiko calmly chided. _I swear, ever since the Boiling Rock, she seems so hyper-protective of the little ditz._ She turned to Ty Lee, who was struggling to get on her feet. "Did he look or sound like anyone in the village?" she asked while pulling the girl up from the ground.

"No, I don't think he was from around here," Ty Lee answered. "He was wearing a red cloak with a hood; I've only seen those on Fire Nationals."

"Fire Nation, huh?" _We're supposed to be in a reparations period with them…must've been a lone bandit. _"Were you able to identify him? Could you see his face?" Kim asked.

"No," she answered, shaking her head, "it was covered up."

"Okay. We'd better get you to the healer and have you checked out. It won't be fun, but we need to make sure that stuff didn't poison you, or anything."

"Not a problem," Ty ensured, draping an arm around Natsumi's neck to keep balance as they started for the town, "so long as I'm not on fish-cleaning duty."

* * *

"And this guy was specifically targeting Ty Lee, correct?" Suki asked. With Ty Lee being examined by the town's healer, Suki and the other warriors were being briefed on the situation, in accordance to what the acrobat had pointed out to Kimiko and Natsumi.

"That's right," Kim confirmed. "Apparently, the guy asked specifically if it was her. He said something about being a 'messenger.'"

"This substance you found on her," Hitomi, Suki's second-in-command asked, "can you describe its characteristics?"

"Well, it was white and dusty looking," Natsumi answered. "It was really thin and…uhh dust…like…but outside of that, nothing special that I can tell."

"Hmm. Kimiko, did _you_ notice anything else?"

"No, everything seemed normal. To be honest, though, even if that stuff _was_ supposed to do something, I don't think it worked. She was a bit achy, but otherwise fine when we found her."

"Well, that much will be confirmed later," Suki surmised. "In the mean time, we need to keep her under close watch. If this messenger came for her, an assassination may soon follow. We'll need to tighten security around the island. We'll have to start screening all inbound ships, both sea-bound and aerial. I don't want a single person breeching our borders without our knowledge. And since this guy attacked her in the middle of the night, we'll have to set up nightly patrols until an assassin's been captured, or the threat is passed. Am I understood?"

"Sir, yes sir!" the others recited in unison.

* * *

"So, the healer gave you a clean bill of health?"

"Yup. Nothing weird or abnormal to speak of, she said," Ty Lee confirmed to Suki, who was sitting beside her on the thin mattress of one of the infirmary's several beds. "So, what do we do about this?"

"We're going to start initiating night patrols and thorough scans of incoming vessels."

"Well that doesn't sound too bad," Ty Lee said with a smirk. "…What about _me?_"

"After some debate with Hitomi and Kei, I've decided to keep you active in daily activities. And before you ask, that _includes _morning drills."

"I figured as much," Ty shrugged. "What about the night patrols?"

"You'll be active in those, too. Most of the shifts will be divided between individual Kyoshi's, but with the threat against you, you'll be paired with someone. I'll let you choose who, if you want."

"I'll do it," a voice declared immediately.

The two girls looked towards the doorway.

"Natsumi, you're supposed to be practicing your kata forms with the other warriors. What are you doing here?" Suki asked, her voice demanding and reprimanding.

"I'm sorry, Suki. I just needed to see how she was doing," Natsumi responded, her voice full of concern.

"She's fine," Suki said. Her voice was less reprimanding, more laced with understanding, but still firm as it should be. "So you want to be her guardian, huh?"

"Yes…w-with your permission, at least," Natsumi reiterated.

"It's not my call." Suki turned to the acrobat. "Your choice, Ty Lee. If you want Natsumi as your partner, then I'll authorize it immediately."

"Sure. I don't see why not," the bedridden acrobat perked. Natsumi beamed with joy and thanks.

"All right, then. Natsumi, consider your request approved. For now, though, we need to give her some rest. Ty Lee, I'll fill you in on the details of the night patrol later on." Ty Lee nodded and curled up on the cot, her eyes closing and welcoming sleep's embrace.

The Kyoshi leader walked out the door with Natsumi glued to her heels. When they were outside of the nursing station, Suki stopped and turned to her fellow warrior.

"So, what's your motivation for wanting to pair up with Ty Lee?" Suki implored.

"…But I-I thought my request was approved," Natsumi gasped.

"It is, but I'm still curious to know why. Any of the warriors could easily keep her guarded." Natsumi settled upon hearing this.

"I know. It's just…she's my best friend, and I don't want anything to happen to her."

"Hmm. Not the most _plausible_ of answers, but understandable. Very well," Suki said with a smile. She then turned serious again, a firm frown taking hold on her face. "Just remember, her life is in your hands. Don't let us down."

"Yes, sir… I-I won't, sir," Natsumi shakily promised. Her eyes faded away from her leader and towards a dry patch in the grass.

* * *

Once more, nighttime casted it's seemingly eternal shadow upon the small atoll of Kyoshi. The orange radiance in the sky died away again as the sun sank below the horizon. The darkness soon was accompanied by dark, ominous clouds. The moon's light was soon lost as the storm rolled in on Kyoshi. Shortly after, rain began to fall, soon joined by lightning and thunder.

Suki was currently on patrol, being caught in the storm during her turn at watch. Her shift had been sandwiched between Etsuko's, and Natsumi's and Ty Lee's. The Kyoshi sect leader had been on duty for about an hour now. Despite her drenched and matted hair, her now washed-off face paint, and soaked body inside an equally soaked clad of armor, she remained vigilant, as she would expect the Kyoshi duo following her to be. After completing her first sweep, she trekked into the woods. Once there, she overturned rocks, lifted tree limbs and scanned the ground, all but crawling on all fours in an effort to try and find clues of who had attacked Ty Lee the previous night.

_I just don't get it. I'm where Natsumi and Kimiko said they'd found her, but I don't see anything. No doubt, the powder's been washed away by now, but there aren't even any footprints. Isn't there _anything _that can clue us in on where that messenger came from?_

Not giving up on her search for clues, Suki slowly trekked back towards the beach. She knew the likelihood of anything being found there now would be nill, especially since she and the other warriors had already scoured the shoreline with no luck earlier in the day, but she _had _to at least try. Once she reached the shore, however, she saw something that made her heart skip a beat.

In the distance, illuminated by the bright and harsh light of a branching lightning bolt was a Fire Nation vessel. She could tell the make by the sparkles cast from the metal, and her eyes caught glimpse of red coloring on the hull. Her breath caught in her throat for the briefest of seconds. _What is a Fire Nation ship doing sailing this way at such a late hour? _Concern awashed within her, but then she settled back down. _The war is over, _Suki reminded herself. After the war came to a close, under Fire Lord Zuko, the Fire Nation was swift to reconcile with Kyoshi Island; Suki suspected it was his way of officially returning his debts for having burned down the small harbor town. The Fire Nation and Kyoshi have been engaged in regular trade since the end of the war. Times hadn't been better for the island, at least in Suki's memory.

Feeling calmed and reassured, she started to look away from the ship as she began to walk to the docks to receive the vessel. But as she'd started that way, she saw a bright orange flash that made her stop dead in her tracks. As she saw the large ball of fire streaking across the sky like a bright, tearing arrow, her breath once more fled from her.

_It…can't be…_

* * *

Ty Lee was the first to leave the world of dreams.

"_What's going on?" _she drunkenly asked to no one in particular as she felt the room shaking, not that there was anyone to ask; she was alone in her room. A voice bellowed into the dormitory, summoning everyone else within from their own comfortable slumber.

"Warriors, rise quickly!" Suki demanded.

Ty Lee poked her head out of her door in time to see Suki storming towards her. "What's wrong, Suki?" she yawned.

"A Fire Nation ship has opened fire off our shores," Suki huffed breathlessly, rain water still dripping from her face, hair and armor. "Kyoshi Island is under attack!"

Ty Lee's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets as confusion swept over her like waves on the shore. _"What?"_


End file.
